Karl Miller wrote:

>Beethoven: Pf.  Con.  No.4, middle movement...for me, it is almost like
>Beethoven trying to have a discussion with God.

Yes, I can imagine that you feel it this way.  It really sounds like
a dialogue between a mad and/or sad, anyway frustrated and distressed
person and a person who is trying to comfort him.  In the older books on
Beethoven's music one can find digressions on the hidden program and more
than once it's explained as a musical discussion between two lovers, who
disagree on something very important, probably their shared or not-shared
future.  With the year of composition in mind there's something to say for
this opinion, for in that year Beethoven was ardently in love and his
beloved (Josephine Brunswick) refused to become his.  But in 1985 Owen
Jander disagreed.  He wrote a challenging article, called '"Orpheus in
Hades": The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto' and published
it in "19th-Century Music." His view: the andante is the musical
expression of Orpheus' attempt to get his Eurydice back and the soft piano
is Orpheus, while the "angry" orchestra are the ghosts.  Finally Orpheus
gets access to the Hades, the ghosts stop protesting.

Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven